RHE 312/STS 311: Inventing Electracy (Fall 2007)

Wide Sites (Fall 2007)

How do argument, rhetoric, composition and writing change in the move from literacy to what Greg Ulmer calls electracy? What are the new compositional and rhetorical practices necessary to navigate electracy? Who will invent these new practices?

This course will begin the work of inventing elecrate (rather than literate) practices. We will not apply theories to texts - we will create new theories. We will not read texts in a new way - we will create new texts.

Using Ulmer's method of "mystory," we will create what he calls "wide sites" using pbwiki software. This software will allow you document the different discourses that have made you the writer/thinker you are, and it will also allow you to track your writing process over time. Our textbook, Internet Invention, provides short writing exercises that will help you build material for each of the major pages in your mystory. By slowly building up materials for your mystory, you will eventually compose a "wide image" - an image that helps you think about your reading, writing, and thinking processes. Albert Einstein's wide image was a compass that his father gave him. What will your wide image be?